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Post by caucasoididiot on Sept 7, 2012 21:10:00 GMT -5
Talked to my son today, and there was a steep curve to the conversation with which I never quite caught up, and would not have at all had I not caught "Opimus[sic] Prime."
Now, my knowledge of the Transformers(tm) comes almost totally from "Half in the Bag" reviews of the films, but when I found that Transformers Prime, the series he's watching, was on YouTube I figured it would be helpful for future conversations if I checked it out.
Now, CGI overload was almost instant, but that's generational. By the end, though, I was really questioning whether I approve of my son (who is five) watching this. It's rated Y7. It's very violent, though without being bloody. That sort of seems to be a decider in these things, but I don't know how much difference it really ought to make. I think that's the sort of question I'm amorphously tossing out here: what is or isn't appropriate at different ages, why and how concerned should one be?
I mean, from what I've seen of the Go Busters series he's been watching the last year, that certainly has a great deal of violence. But, there's something different, though it's hard to put a finger on. Maybe the fact that one of the fighting robots in that is a giant flying bunny illustrates a certain whimsicality that I'm not seeing in Transformers. But again, how much difference does or should that make?
I dunno . . . it's not like I didn't see a lot of TV violence as a kid, but at his age I was watching Adam West's Batman, and this feels like a really different kettle of fish.
Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
I'm gonna go watch Tetsuo 3: The Bullet Man. Maybe we should watch it together. Being about a half he could really identify with it . . .
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 7, 2012 21:49:34 GMT -5
I've only seen one episode of Transformers Prime, but I wasn't really paying attention, so if it was really violent, I didn't notice. But cartoons have evolved over the years. Superhero shows back in the early days of TV were humor heavy and usually ended with the hero pulling one move and saving the day. In the 80s, things changed. There was a lot of gunfire (lasers, mostly), but rarely had actual consequences been shown before the villains just shout "RETREAT!" out of nowhere and run away. I'm not sure if you've ever seen the original Transformers series from the 80s, but it was a huge offender in this (until the Movie in 87, which killed off almost every character so they could introduce the new wave of toys).
I think the superhero show that proved to be a turning point in how far violence could go in children's programing was the Batman series of the 90, which was pretty edgy stuff at the time. It had mature themes and serious plots. Characters were rarely killed in it (though they did get several through the censors), but the violence was very hardcore and felt real. I think most cartoon superhero shows in its wake strive to be what it was now. Immediately after we had the melodramatic X-Men series, which showed blood on occasion, and a serialized series based one Spider-Man.
This effect did hit Transformers in the form of a series called Beast Wars, which while humorous, was never afraid to take a dark turn. It killed off its characters during the course of the series, often in very powerful ways. I drifted away from Transformers since then, but I imagine in the wake of Michael Bay's films there's more violence to be expected from them, so they try their best to keep up with expectations.
But I think Batman's influence outweighs anything else. Thanks to that series, quite a few superhero shows are used as a platform to raise the bar in just how mature a children's show can be, as opposed to the code of the 80s, which was more ore less "fill up a syndication package as fast as possible" which resulted in a handfull of good episodes and a buttload of crap.
I'm not sure if this perspective helps you with your question or not, but that's what I have observed from animation over the years.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Sept 7, 2012 23:25:07 GMT -5
Thanks, that actually is some of the kind of thing I was looking for.
Obviously the world is a pretty violent place, and children can't and probably shouldn't be totally removed from that. Pre-Disney fairy tales are often pretty grisly.
And yet I couldn't help feeling sort of creeped out by what I saw. I dunno . . . '60s Batman (which I hate to admit I watched a bit of on YouTube lately) would have things like, "Chief O'Hara, how can suggest a patriotic American taxpayer would cover his debts through theft?" I remember even as a kid catching that something was sorta smirky in there.
But for all that in later TV I crave the morally ambivalent (I loved Babylon 5 for exactly that), I am left wondering if five-year-olds maybe do need to be spoon fed a few things. I was past toy age in the '80s, but I remember what I saw of Transformers advertising not seeming to distinguish between Transformer and Decepticon much beyond the Friendly/Enemy label. The Decepticons kill us beacuse they're evil, and we kill them because they're evil. How much things like that matter, I don't really know.
Shoulda watched Tetsuo II instead of Tetsuo 3; the themes of fathers damning their sons ad infinitum was better developed there . . .
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 8, 2012 10:09:56 GMT -5
Glad my useless knowledge of cartoons could help. I grew up during the transition period, so I kind of matured as the shpws I was watching did. The only thing that I think might have been too adult in retrospect was that afore mentioned Transformers movie from the 80s. Some of that imagery is kind of disturbing to think it was actually made FOR kids, what with all the robots being torn apart and the genocide being committed by the giant planet eating robot (played by Orson Welles in his final role, thank you!).
I'm not sure if there has been a more impactful TV show since Batman since its release 20 years ago, though. I know Pokemon ushered in an anime explosion and the new My Little Pony show is turning heads, but I don't think any of them had the impact of maturity and violence on television though. So that's probably the best perspective I can put Transformers Prime into for the era it lives in.
As a 5 year old, pretty much what I watched were the original Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all of which seem pretty tame now. However one can argue that showing actual consequences of violence instead of none at all is probably better for the mind. Imagine all that gunplay with no one getting hurt leading to the impression that guns just might be harmless.
Personally, though, I might heed a Y7 rating and wait until a child is 7 before he can view that level of cartoon. I don't have children though. There is always solice in the innocent moral programming of Nick Jr, though he might have reached that age where he would claim "it's just for babies."
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 8, 2012 13:14:38 GMT -5
Here's something semi related that happened to me a year ago. My niece was watching a cartoon show called Mad, from the guys who make Mad Magazine. On the show they were parodying the finale of Smallville by saying it continued as a Broadway musical or something like that (I don't really remember the exact details). Throughout the show there were various references and parodies to the development troubles of the Spider-Man broadway show. Initially I was taken aback, but I remembered as a child that I watched the Simpsons and (against my parents wishes) Married...With Children and Bevis and Butthead, shows with pop culture elements a youngling wouldn't catch but would laugh at the absudity of the context. I figured that this was the same case.
But then I relized, unlike those shows, this show was made FOR children. This confused the hell out of me. I silently wondered just how much of what was going on my niece actually understood and just how much of what she was laughing at was absurd context. This was more than a simple TV show parody that I would have seen on Garfield and Friends.
Thats when I made a shocking realization. I've become "the old guy." The differences between then and now have now shocked me and it's only going to get worse over the years. Twas the saddest day of my life, but it's a neccessary truth we must all accept.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 8, 2012 15:00:45 GMT -5
One last thing before I'm done debating myself on this subject. I mentioned Garfield and Friends in my previous post, but I failed to mention something I found when revisiting the series several years ago. In one of the episodes that isn't apart of the ofter seen syndication package, there was a segment devoted to the idea of procrastination. However everytime someone said the word "procrastination" someone gasped and shouted "YOU CAN'T SAY THAT ON A SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON SHOW!" Naturally my eyes went wide and I said "duuuuuuuude!" I wonder how many angry parent phone calls they got from that.
Anyway, that's just an example of things that fly over a child's head but an adult would see, and how it was evedent even back way back when. Has this always been the case? Food for thought.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Sept 9, 2012 21:52:29 GMT -5
One last thing before I'm done debating myself on this subject. Yeah, I really launched this as less a question on my particular worry than to open the topic in general, which I think is both interesting and important. But I'm finding your insights very helpful. I prob'ly shouldn't have launched it drunk and depressed, I'll admit . . . I did watch the second ep, and felt dialed back a tad, but yeah, I think whoever makes these calls may have done it rightly at Y7. Unfortunately, they have no such rating system that I know of in Japan, and I have to be very cagey broaching anything even smacking of criticism. It was only in the second ep that I realized the girl is supposed to be a Japanese exchange student. I s'pose she's more plausibly so dubbed . . .
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Post by caucasoididiot on Sept 10, 2012 19:40:03 GMT -5
Well, episode three, in which the Federal agent character gets interrogated with the help of an energon cattle prod.
And the character of Miko is developing. Having followed a lone Autobot into the transport thingy to find they are face-to-face with a whole shipload of Decepticons, she whoops around like an unarmed and ineffectual Viking Berserker, distracting the Autobot, who has to save her from getting stepped on a couple times. She seems oblivious to the idea that this might not be fun. Later, she gets all miffed when reinforcements arrive, 'cuz "this is our time!"
A bit before this the Autobot, locked in combat with a Decepticon, tells her to turn away. He then smashes open the Decepticon's chest and rips some vital "organ" from it, trailing cables. Of course, Miko hasn't turned away. Instead we get a zoom to closeup, her eyes going wide and saying, "Kewwwlll!"
At that moment the character went for me from annoying to loathsome. Is this our idea of feminine empowerment? Don't worry, girls, you can be as psycho as any boy! Lets go beat up Alex and his droogs! Yes, the victim was "just a robot," but the whole thing they're trying to establish in these early eps is that Autobots have personality, feelings, "souls" if you want to put it in those terms, and if I'm getting the backstory straight, they and the Autobots are supposed to be two offshoots of the same cybernetic species.
I still don't know exactly what lines it's crossing. I don't think it's the violence per se. I watched Peter Pan last night, and it's really quite violent (I'd had no idea that Tinkerbelle tried to pull a fragging on Wendy), but I return to the word I used in an earlier post: whimsical. I know that there are a lot people who worry about Road-Runner type violence, but I tend to think kids do get that that isn't real, especially in the context of a blackened Daffy Duck saying, "You're dethpicable!"
One subtle thing that creeps me out about this show is the way the enemy are called 'Cons, a clearly derogatory term. It just has too much of the aroma of words like "Kraut," "Gook" or "Jap": dehumanizing (decybernizing?) terms for the enemy that dull the act of killing them.
I'm overanalyzing I'm sure, and whether any of this stuff is even impinging on him is hard to say. But especially given that he's had problems with hitting other kids at daycare, I'm really not comfortable with his watching this and am trying to think of some subtle way of bringing it up.
I'm so glad I had Star Trek at five. Yeah, you knew if there was an Ensign Leibowitz on the landing party he wasn't going home, and at that age the phasers and Kirk beating the bejeezus outta some Klingon were a lot of what I was focusing on. I didn't completely get the down endings of eps like "A Private Little War" or "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," but that idea of even needful violence causing as many problems as it solved was there to grow into.
And best of all, it had the sense of wonder and discovery born of that era of the triumph of Apollo. I hope shows like this are tickling that part of his brain . . . but I'm not sure I'd lay cash money on it.
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Post by angilasman on Sept 10, 2012 23:31:04 GMT -5
I feel that the justification for the violence and the attitudes of the heroes is the most important. My favorite comic book is Usagi Yojimbo (I've probably mentioned that here) and it's set in samurai times, deals with a lot of violence, ect. ect. Yet it maintains a kind of kindness and gentleness that makes it acceptable for younger people despite being aimed at adults. Part of this is because horrible events are depicted as horrible - that may seem counter intuitive, but I think that's good: it isn't exploitative. The main character, Usagi, is a samurai who really doesn't want to kill anybody. He gives his opponents every chance in the world to not face his sword; he'd rather come off as a coward to avoid a useless fight; and when it comes time for Usagi to actually kill people it's thoroughly explained in-story just how this is the last resort and unavoidable, usually because these guys in the middle of trying to kill Usagi or someone else.
When it seems like violence for violence sake it troubles me. A lot of the current superhero movies depict heroes that seem far to quick to kill, in my opinion.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Sept 11, 2012 9:58:31 GMT -5
Yes, I think context is the key. I'm only marginally familiar with Usagi Yojimbo, but what you're saying dovetails with some of what I was pondering last night.
Conflict is a given. "Conflict-free" might be a great label for diamonds but a problematic one for story telling. Usually that is going to involve some violence, whether actual or implied. Now, the presentation of the vilence itself is an issue, I think. A character blackened and blinking in the wake of a bomb is different from a character in Platoon stumbling out of a bunker with no arms. Where the line falls on that is hard to delineate, and--as you say--sometimes a slightly edgier presentation can indeed be used to make a point.
Thinkng about traditional children's cartoons, it seems to me that they sort of map onto the roughhousing that kids do. Elmer Fudd is that bigger kid on the playground that won't leave you alone, and Bugs outwitting him is a resolution to that problem. Wile E. Coyote takes that an interesting step further, in that usually it's his own increasingly hare-brained schemes back-firing on him that are the resolution. Either way, the violence here has to be fairly "soft" to be appropriate, I think.
Traditional superheroes are usually set in what might be called a "police" role. They may not be of the system, generally being peripheral to it, perhaps even themselves hunted by it in the US versions (Japanese ones are more likely to part of an official organization; I'm not completely clear on the Go-Busters backstory but their command centre seems to be staffed by the Jietai). But the world they live in is one at peace, something they protect in the name of "Truth, Justice and The American Way" or whatever. Now that can age quickly, seeming corny or even "White Male Reality" as values change, but there are values involved.
I think the core issue that bothers me about Transformers Prime is that the context is war. Everything's constantly at DefCon 1, shoot on sight and shoot to kill. Now, wars are often fought over the same sort of values issues I mentioned above, but there's an inevitable simplification and erosion of that. It's hard to imagine Superman saying, "It became necessary to destroy Metropolis in order to save it," but that's exactly where even the most just wars tend to go. Guards shove Untermenschen into the ovens of Dachau while their wives and kids in Dresden go up in flames. Transformers doesn't even sweeten this with much proximate cause, aside from the typical dirty fighting the bad guys do. It's essentially a race war that's gone on for millennia.
I just think war is too much of a context for a pre-schooler. In retrospect, if there's one show I think I shouldn't have been watching at the ages I was it was Hogan's Heroes. I suppose part of the problem is that the superhero genre itself has sort of grown up: initially mainly seen as the domain of kids or youth, it's now a popular format for adult movies. Now, once you start taking the concept to older audiences, there probably has to be some element of irony and darkness and the violence "harder" if it isn't going to just come off as juvenile. But it's important to remember that a significant part of the audience is juvenile, and not to just mash up the whole genre, or so it seems to me.
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Post by BJ on Sept 12, 2012 16:14:47 GMT -5
I read through this thread the other day, and realized I didn't have much to add. I've never seen any conclusive evidence demonstrating how fictional violence affects children, so I figure that's just something for parents to decide on their own. Kids don't really understand violence and death, so they'll like just about anything that engages their senses. Colorful drawings of violence, fighting and explosions do that wonderfully.
Whenever the topic comes up about cartoons being too violent these days, I always remember Matt Groening emphatically saying that Popeye actually killed people in the old cartoons. Comic artists have always loved sex and violence, and that's not going to change any time soon. I'm not saying that's good or bad, just that it's not a new development.
Almost forgot, this thread made me think of Gatchaman, a fairly serious and enjoyable Japanese show. Our friend Sandy Frank got hold of it and, like everything he touches, ruined it. The tone was lightened, the violence removed and the dialogue changed, with two lame C3P0 style robots inserted for "humor". Battle of the Planets wasn't bad, but nowhere near as interesting as the more violent original. I don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that Sandy Frank is a terrible person.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Sept 12, 2012 19:22:44 GMT -5
Yeah, I pretty much agree with that. I find both the "media violence fosters violent behaviour" and "media violence vents aggressions and thus discourages violent behaviour" plausible, but what actual science one sees seems inconclusive. I imagine it's a very complex issue, with elements of both and many other factors in play.
I'm also a libertarian at heart, so wouldn't advocate censorship of this kind of thing. In the past I've even been somewhat disdainful of Tipper's TV ratings system, but this has made me a lot more sympathetic to it. Parents should be taking the responsibility, and it's an aid to that.
I'm curious if any of our members who are parents have any thoughts on Transformers Prime or the topic in general. I don't know that these concatenating additions of my own are delineating anything beyond my own confusion. I watched Go Busters together with him, and nothing raised my hackles, but this does and I'm trying to figure out why and whether it's anything to be concerned about.
I've reached episode 5 and the end of the first mini-arc. The wiki on the show notes that it's darker than earlier Transformers, but to its credit by the end of this one a few "human" relationships that don't seem dysfunctional have developed. The "Dexter" kid has shown some actual usefulness, and at least the two sides have the distinction that Megatron beats the heavy grease outta his underling when he screws up, while Optimus Prime just lectures his ('course, one might argue that the indiscipline of his outfit might call for at least a towel inspection or something).
Miko remains an awful character, delighted by her own cluelessness and ineffectuality (I knew Annakin Skywalker, Annakin Skywalker was a friend of mine, your're no Annakin Skywalker). I'm at least thankful it's not a daughter of mine watching this. All she has is the Third Millenium version of "spunk." I hate spunk!
If I were in closer touch it would probably be better. It may be that he doesn't see it as any more connected to the real world than The Pink Panther. I--and probably my generation--tend to associate CGI with things nearer to "reality," but I suspect that's different with him. He was a fan of Chugginton last year, and I'm sure it didn't leave him trying to talk to trains and frustrated that they didn't answer. Uncertainty breeds overconcern, but that doesn't lead to certainty that the concern is unwarranted.
I have casually asked my wife in an e-mail if she doesn't think it's more violent than Go Busters. We'll see.
While waiting, I'm developing a pitch for a new children's program: Platoon: The Animated Series. We'll substitute the word "motherscratcher" and change the pot smoking to sugar highs (lots of product placement potential there). I'm guessing that'll get us to Y7, and Johnny Depp has shown some interest in doing voice work . . .
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Post by angilasman on Sept 12, 2012 22:21:41 GMT -5
Whenever the topic comes up about cartoons being too violent these days, I always remember Matt Groening emphatically saying that Popeye actually killed people in the old cartoons. He killed a few animals in the earliest cartoons and comics: in a very, very early cartoon he punches a bull so hard it becomes perfectly cut and packaged pieces of meat (including one labeled kosher). In those earliest cartoons he was more brutal than in the early comics, where the closest he got was once punching a horse he was mad at, which then fell over dead. Olive and Popeye were stranded in the desert at the time and decided to eat the horse, but when the time came to eat Popeye was so upset over accidentally killing the animal he was unable to. But Popeye has been emphatically against "killin'" people since the beginning. "It 'taint right to take hooman life!" as he would say. He goes out of his way to save even the worst villains in the comic and in the cartoon such heavy cartoon logic is implemented that no one is ever so bad off that a short stay in the hospital in a comical full-body-cast couldn't fix 'em.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Sept 14, 2012 8:57:30 GMT -5
Well, my wife says she doesn't think there's anything wrong with the show. Case closed.
Not the end of the world. Much of my reaction stems from this catalyzing deeper dissatisfaction with the underlying situation (not to mention too much alcohol lately). Trying to decide if I should keep watching them. I probably will, as he'll probably want to talk about them, and familiarity will make that easier.
Maybe I'll even successfully desensitize myself to it, and can move on to worrying about the latest Senkaku incident instead.
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Post by GarrettCRW on Sept 16, 2012 10:44:30 GMT -5
Transformers' big problem has always been that the movie's death spree (which was inspired by Buzz Dixon's plan to kill off Duke in G.I. Joe: The Movie) has created some odd sort of fetish for the dark spectacle of killing off most of the show's core cast, even though it had no place on the movie, and was a major factor in why G1's popularity cratered in America, even after Sunbow's hand was forced, and Optimus Prime was returned from the dead.
Also, there's a rule that led to TF: The Movie's carnage that still stands: it's OK to kill it if it's a robot. You'll be amazed at how much this rule is abused when the writers aren't hacky saturday morning cartoon writers of the '70s and '80s (most of TF Seasons 1 and 2) or excellent comic book writers (TF Season 3). Especially when it's encouraged by the franchise's fanbase.
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